Читать книгу No Money, No Beer, No Pennants. The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Great Depression онлайн

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League Park had been the home of Cleveland baseball dating all the way back to 1891. The seating capacity at that time was nine thousand, quite adequate for the up-and-down Cleveland Spiders. Nearly twenty years later, owner Charlie Somers put a brick-and-steel second deck on the park that doubled the original number of seats. Jim Dunn, who acquired the team in 1916, found a way to push the seating capacity even higher, carving out another seven thousand seats. When the Cleveland Indians made their first World Series appearance in 1920 (and won, 5–2 over the Brooklyn Robins), temporary seats and standing room squeezed another thousand or two fans inside the grounds. Just one more row of seats and the park might have exploded.

With a much-deserved World Championship, the bar had been raised for Cleveland baseball. In spite of its friendly confines and neighborhood appeal, League Park could no longer deal with the crowds that wanted to see the hometown boys play ball. American League stars like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, and a host of others generated more ticket requests than could be handled. An alternative to the historic park at 66th and Lexington had to be found.